Mitt Romney Gets Blasted By Conservatives In Two Must-Read Columns

It’s time to admit the Romney campaign is an incompetent one.
It’s not big, it’s not brave, it’s not thoughtfully tackling
great issues. It’s always been too small for the moment. All the
activists, party supporters and big donors should be pushing for
change. People want to focus on who at the top is least
constructive and most responsible. Fine, but Mitt Romney is no puppet: He chooses who to
listen to. An intervention is in order. “Mitt, this isn’t
working.”

These appear to be the words of somebody who doesn't understand
American conservatism and its relationship to the American idea.
Conservatives don't believe in economic
determinism. Conservatives know--and explain why--their
economic policies will help the poor, as well as senior citizens,
working families, and our troops who pay no income
taxes. Conservatives realize that the Republican party is
not the party of people who want to be rich, it's the party of
people who want to be free.

The reason such remarks keep slipping out of Mitt Romney's
mouth is not that Romney wants to wage a class war against
lower-income Americans. The likely problem is that Mitt Romney is
not a conservative--or at least wasn't a conservative until late
in life--but he is running for president as the nominee of the
conservative party on a conservative platform. So he has trouble
defending conservative ideas. And when he sells himself to
conservatives, he sometimes comes across as a right-wing
caricature.